"Methane leakage" refers to the unintentional release of methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.
Full definition
Of course, their basic premise is correct: If you are going to burn natural gas, we need to focus on
methane leakage from natural gas infrastructure.
Multiple studies have indicated that natural gas is no better for the climate than coal when you consider the high rates
of methane leakage in natural gas production and transport.
There are also outstanding questions related to the real - world efficiency gains of natural gas fuels and the life - cycle emissions they produce based
on methane leakage in the production process.
This new effort will encourage innovation, provide accountability and transparency, and track progress toward specific methane emission reduction activities and goals to
reduce methane leakage across the natural gas value chain.
But
if methane leakage would be greater than 2 percent, there would be less warming in the near term if the natural gas plant were shut down instead of the coal plant.
This is just the latest peer - reviewed study
finding methane leakage rates well below the threshold for natural gas to maintain its climate benefits over other traditional fuel alternatives.
Regardless, the team emphasized that meeting upcoming greenhouse gas emission targets will require deeper emissions cuts than just building natural gas plants with
low methane leakage.
On gas: several studies have argued that gas is no better than coal from a CO2 perspective,
given methane leakage.
We need to look
beyond methane leakage for a moment, and think about the transition to gas in a larger context.
And that warming, unlike the warming due to
methane leakage from fracking, is essentially irreversible.
Work to assure that there is less waste in the actual extraction and production process — such as driving down
methane leakage during gas production.
For example, burning compressed natural gas emits roughly 30 percent less CO2 than burning diesel but, if the new
methane leakage estimates are true, the practice ends up being worse for climate change.
Shale: Water First, Leak Later: The Climate Benefits of Shale Gas Could Leak and Wash Awaydiscusses
how methane leakage and water usage rates are eroding the climate argument for shale gas.
Although LNG proponents still characterize shale gas production as «clean» and
without methane leakage or groundwater contamination, field observations by the David Suzuki Foundation suggest that many leaky wells are not appearing in the B.C. database.
«If one company reports 4 percent lost gas consistently across years and another reports 1 percent, wouldn't you expect the first company's pipelines to be responsible for
more methane leakage to the atmosphere?»
But if you want to
make methane leakage sound scarier than it really is, you can present the short term GWPw (global warming potential per unit of weight) of 25 or 72, rather than the long term GWPfm of 3.3 or 10, and perhaps hope that the reader will do the mistaken calculation and come away overly frightened by the large value.
; and that «the benefits of cleaner, more efficient combustion of natural gas are largely offset
by methane leakage in U.S. production and pipelines and by methane leaks and energy used in the process of liquefying and transporting the LNG.»
Utilize incentive programs for
addressing methane leakage in utility and customer - owned pipelines that prioritize safety and climate change mitigation.
But they also found that the mineral byproducts of
methane leakage came in concentrated pockets at different depths.
Methane is at least 34 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide,
so methane leakage erodes the climate advantage natural gas has over coal.
Cutting methane leakage rates from natural gas systems to less than 1 percent of total production would ensure that the climate impacts of natural gas are lower than coal or diesel fuel over any time horizon.
Tom Friedman ticks through the natural gas boom,
methane leakage risks, and the plausible Republican idea of a national Clean Energy Standard in today's op - ed.
Update, Aug. 4, 9:15 a.m. A peer - reviewed paper has found that a device used in the research discussed below could have greatly
underestimated methane leakage.
Methane emissions are a major problem for the oil and gas sector; some estimates
put methane leakage from oil and gas production at 17 percent.
Using Purdue's Airborne Laboratory for Atmospheric Research (pictured above), Cornell and Purdue researchers collaborated to learn about
methane leakage over the Marcellus Shale gas wells.
This grim fact is even bleaker if the international community concludes that it should limit warming to 1.5 degrees C, a conclusion that might become more obvious if current levels of warming start to make positive feedbacks visible in the next few years such
as methane leakage from frozen tundra or more rapid loss of arctic ice.
Yes, the fracking process is dirty, noisy and polluting, and yes,
methane leakage around gas wells is exacerbating climate change.
Indeed,
when methane leakage from drilling and infrastructure is factored in, natural gas doesn't look much like a climate hero at all.
Until methane leakage rates are scientifically determined, any ghg inventory or projection of future emissions should identify the range of leakage rates that appear in the extant literature.
So,
although methane leakage reduces the short - term emissions benefit of switching from coal to gas — and should be addressed for that reason — it does not limit natural gas's potential as a bridge fuel to a low - carbon future.
Phrases with «methane leakage»